Word: dirt
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...long ago, I was in Diyala province, sitting in the back seat of a Humvee as it rolled down a dirt road on the outskirts of Baqubah. The roadside bomb we triggered went off directly under me. Luckily, it was relatively small, and the armor protected everyone inside from serious injury. But everyone was left in pain. The moment of the blast felt like ice picks plunging in both ears at once. A second later, thick whitish smoke filled the cab, and inhaling it instantly formed a throbbing headache comparable to my most vicious hangovers...
What endures is the underlying vitality of the fair, the unapologetic streak of real life. The actual dirt. Genuine food grilled by volunteer firefighters or the high school booster club. Wailing babies. Odd juxtapositions, like the sign on the pig racetrack extolling the love of Jesus. The smell of animal dung. Girls in tight jeans and the boys who ogle them as their fathers visit booths touting dry basements and power tools...
...next to a swing gate. It is the entrance to a sealed-off hillside base, one of many that have sprung up over the last year in the rugged mountains and stony valleys around Rihan, a southern Lebanese village. The entrance to another no-go zone, along a rutted dirt track, is advertised by a sign that reads: WARNING. ACCESS TO THIS AREA IS FORBIDDEN. HIZBALLAH. Less than a mile to the south, the Litani River, shriveled to a creek by the summer heat, cuts through a deep, meandering gorge. The river marks the edge of Hizballah's new military...
...rent houses in Bissau in 2004, declaring themselves exporters of fish or cashew nuts, while in reality coordinating industrial-sized shipment and storage of cocaine from Latin America. One afternoon, an undercover detective drives me around Bissau to point out the mansions where the Colombians live. Erected on dirt lanes, they have Romanesque columns, walls with kitsch pastoral mosaics, and satellite dishes on their Spanish-style tiled roofs...
...getting older and shouldn't do your own stunts, so of course I did my own stunts," he said. He shows me, after some prodding, the spot near the bridge of his nose where he got 28 stitches after getting kicked in the head. "I just rubbed dirt on it and kept going," he said, smirking. Really? "Yeah, just rubbed some dirt on it." Seriously? He raises one eyebrow, either amused or disappointed or both...